I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 1-3

I am not sure I ever thought about the fact that even after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the apostles still thought He was going to overthrow the Roman Empire and re-establish the Kingdom of Israel.  Yet, a short time later, on the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached a sermon which appears to show that he understood that the Kingdom of Heaven was outside of geopolitics.

I had never before really thought about what happened on the Day of Pentecost from an outside perspective.  In the past I always thought about what happened from the perspective of those gathered, but today I wondered what drew the crowd?  It would be easy to think that the crowd gathered because they heard the disciples speaking in various languages, but that makes me wonder, how did they hear that.  However, the passage tells us that the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples generated a loud noise (the description suggests that it would have sounded like an explosion).  Which leads me to think that the crowd came to see what caused the noise and began asking the disciples what had happened.  The disciples all began answering in the native tongue of their interlocutors.  However, the members of the crowd would have had trouble understanding the answers they received, because, to be perfectly honest, the disciples would not have fully understood and the would not have known how much the person they were speaking to knew of the backstory.  Finally, Peter realized what was going on with the mixed messages being given and got everyone’s attention in order to give a coherent explanation (the Holy Spirit played a significant role in both Peter’s understanding of what was going on and in the explanation he gave).